Tuesday, November 25, 2003

I really like everyone's "books received" lists so I thought I'd compose my own, since I've received so many books lately.

Haunt by Keith Waldrop (instress)

Semiramis if I Remember by Keith Waldrop (I already had this one, inscribed to Tom Clark but now I have one inscribed to me) (Avec)

Blindsight by Rosmarie Waldrop (New Directions)

Elio Pagliarani in America (Agincourt)

In a Glass Box by Brenda Iijima (Pressed Wafer)

Some Values of Landscape and Weather by Peter Gizzi (Wesleyan)

Cloud-type by Kathleen Miller (limited edition letterpressed chapbook)

Pie in the Sky by Juliana Leslie (Braincase)

Falling Forward by Sara Veglahn (Braincase)

A Poem A Movie & A Poem by Nick Moudry (Braincase)

For Poems by Aaron Tieger & Christopher Rizzo (Anchorite)

At Port Royal by Christopher Edgar (AIP) I bought this one.

Magazine Cypress 2

Combo 12

NO 2

and the entire catalog of limited edition/signed Oblek Editions books

First, read Stephanie's report.

Then I'll fill in about Chris Edgar as Stephanie suggested I do. Ok. You've read her report. Now about Chris Edgar:

So I've never seen Chris' work before. I've seen his book at SPD, but never picked it up. I only knew of him as half the editorial staff of the Hat. Last night Jordan introduced me to Chris and I found him to be a very very nice guy. I like nice people a lot. So after Sara and before Jordan, Chris got up to read at Canessa Park. I don't know where he began because by the time he finished with "Birthday," the first poem in his book, At Port Royal, I was so amorously lost in vertigo I didn't know what had happened. The standout, for me, was the poem "His Kind of Woman," written from the 1951 film of same title featuring one of my all time favorite actors, Robert Mitchum. Not to mention, Vincent Price, Jane Russel and Raymond Burr.

His Kind of Woman

Too much laughter in the dark
Can drive a man insane
Convince him to take a walk
In the park or just go
Out for a pack of cigarettes
Good trouble is hard to find
This could be the reason
We still stick together
After all these dog years
We stopped asking each
Other questions long ago
Certain things make no sense
While other things are still burning
Like a string of nights in Mexico
You must remember those
Or maybe not
Was it something I said
Or something in the water
Or the air, it was always the air
A certain color you could never
Put your finger on
However much you tried


This poem embodies the film in a beautiful way, behaving as if it were inside the film. It is inside the film, it's the dialogue in so condensed a form that you have seen the whole film after reading this poem.
Chris' poetry behaves ((somewhat), I don't want to get into trouble here) like nth generation NYSchool but is more lyrically aware than a significant portion of contemporary poetry. Hell, I'm going to read the book before writing myself into a corner.

"Llewellyn's mythical Roman past. Llewellyn's witchhunters. Llewellyn's Huguenots. Llewellyn reborn. Llewellyn and the rise of the whaling trade. Trade winds bless Llewellyn..."
--from "Pictures of Llewellyn"

Tonight!!!

Michael Palmer

5:30pm Faculty Lounge
MILLS COLLEGE

You can go to this and then make it to Jordan and crew @ 7:30
even get a little sauced up beforehand.

Dan Fisher printed a gorgeous Palmer broadside that'll be for sale.

Monday, November 17, 2003

William Faulkner wrote you. Yes, you're a genius,
you drunken old coot.


Which Author's Fiction are You?
Problem solved.

Thursday, November 13, 2003

Ok. I didn't give the Gender Genie a text with over 500 words, I gave it the first section of a new long poem:

TYPOGRAPHY

Typography exists to honor content
—Robert Bringhurst


They cannot avoid the unsolicited messages,
the attention drawn with the hand to mimic
a classical form in an elegant present. It makes
visual sense to be lachrymal, to be teary-eyed.
As the counter and the foot work to balance,
the dancer, being modern, falls to the floor
with a thud. When she rises, a letterform.
Many of them together. Spelling out
O-U-R-S-E-L-V-E-S O-U-R D-I-L-E-M-M-A-S.
These are our muddy proofs, this adnate limb.
They while away the day being read and little
else. I want to cast the dancer in lead, place a C
in the room where white space was. If we made
a body hold a shape, would it say it were occupied?

Yeah. I'm writing a sonnet crown. It's called Typography. And it was written by a female. Last I checked, I had a lead pipe and a pair o' dice (this is what I imagine a young ray liotta would say in a sequel to Goodfellas). Though the gender genie does confirm my belief in my "metrosexuality." Does metrosexual count as a gender? It should.

OH!!! I QUIT SMOKING!!! GO FIGURE, I, THE SMOKINGEST OF ALL THE YOUNG POETS WHO SMOKE, QUIT.

The other day I told Stephanie that I was going to kill my blog.

She got very worked up about some secret society of blogicidal poet/bloggers, asked if we wore dark robes and pointy hats and danced around a smoldering computer monitor. I really wasn't going to kill my blog, I had the flu and didn't want to deal with anything. We all know that the blog is an extra detail in our full lives that requires time, which equals money. Can we get paid for blogging? That'd be nice. So anyway...Since I was on the topic of death, I was reminded of something funny that happened to me in Providence:

So there I was In Providence, Rhode Island with my good pal Kate and we were walking to the great big cemetary along the river. It was a brisk and beautiful autumn afternoon, the cars whirring by, the light strolling toward dusk. Once inside the cemetary, Kate suggested i see this great huge tree, a maple I think. At the perimiter of its opulent shape, I looked at the grave at my feet and read "Sarah Lovecraft" and mentioned, "Where's H.P.?" and scanning to my right, on a smallish gravestone adorned with trinkets and memorabilia was his name. Wow, I thought. Here lies H.P. Lovecraft, of whom I've never read a single word. So I thought about dead writers. And now I will continue to think and blog about dead writers I discover along the way.

Back from "tour" report:

I'll go in reverse. We finished the tour in Amherst, MA with a crowd of at least 60 people. Aaron Tieger read first from his Shanties... series, which I liked a lot, and I assume from the laughter, that the audience did too. Then Geoffrey Dyer read from some new work and his book The Dirty Halo of Everything. All I need to say is if you haven't read this book, DO. Then I read and yeah, I was great. We went out for beer and fried pickles afterward. John Erhardt (The Skeptic) was there and it was nice to meet him albeit brief.

New York. Rain. Geoff and I got to the gallery a little early and so went to a pub up the street for some Stella. Got back at 6. People were still filtering in. Some older gentleman, who I don't know approached me and said "55 minutes down the drain! I came all the way down from Uptown." I shrugged and apologized but it's a poetry reading, when do they ever begin on time. He left. My aunt and uncle even came from Jersey, which was really great. That was the first time anyone in my family has heard me read more than one poem. Geoff read, then me, then Robert Paredez, who I think and hope people took a liking to because he is one of our greatest unknown poets, and then Noah Eli Gordon finished the evening. I met Brenda Iijima, David Perry, and a whole lot of other people whose names I've forgotten.

We began in Providence. Began the evening at the Waldrop home with some wine and cheese. Then went to dinner at an indian restaurant where the Waldrops suggested more wine. We heartily agreed. Then to Atlas Bower Books, where Michael Gizzi was waiting to introduce us. The reading was good and the space small so it looked really packed. Met and had drinks with Mike Magee, William Gillespie and Jennifer Martensen. I stayed with my very good friend and new Brown MFA student,Kate Schatz.

I got home and contracted the flu. I'm still recovering. It was a very rock star style tour.